TURANDOT Brings Fire And Ice To The Canadian Opera Company

After a 15-year wait for music lovers, Puccini's Turandot returns to the Canadian Opera Company in a striking new production from visionary director Robert Wilson at the Four Season Centre for the Performing Arts. Princess Turandot has a fierce reputation that precedes her royal name thanks to a high-stakes challenge she has issued: answer her three riddles correctly and win her hand in marriage. Answer incorrectly and pay dearly - with your life. As a steady stream of admirers land face-to-face with the executioner, Prince Calaf takes on the deadly game and has a mystery of his own for Turandot to solve. Turandot runs for nine performances on September 28, October 4, 9, 15, 17, 19, 23, 25, 27, 2019.

Wilson is a renowned multidisciplinary artist who has collaborated with a wide range of cultural icons including composer Philip Glass, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, and singer/songwriter Lady Gaga. For this highly anticipated COC debut, he teams up with co-director Nicola Panzer to lend his innovative visual artistry to one of opera's biggest blockbusters. With clean lines and sleek minimalism, Wilson and designer Stephanie Engeln have created a distinctly modern set that echoes Turandot's seemingly cold exterior. With lighting designer John Torres, he paints the stage in dramatic chiaroscuro and, against this backdrop, costumes by Jacques Reynaud create striking figures, cloaked in rich colour, shape, and texture. Makeup design is by Manu Halligan; and Tomek Jeziorski completes the creative team as projection designer.

American soprano and Richard Tucker Award-winner Tamara Wilson shares the title role with soprano Marjorie Owens, in role debuts for both artists. In Wilson's last COC appearance as Desdemona in Otello this past spring, NOW Magazine predicted her "powerful, full-bodied soprano... bodes well for her turn as Turandot." Opera News has praised Owens for her "star quality" and "vocal stamina" - two attributes that will certainly serve her well in this role.

Russian tenor Sergey Skorokhodov brings his "clear, glowing focal point as a soloist" (Texas Classical Review) to his COC mainstage debut as the daring Calaf; Skorokhodov shares the role with Bulgarian tenor Kamen Chanev, who returns to Toronto after singing Cavaradossi in the COC's Tosca in 2016. American bass David Leigh returns to Toronto after making his COC debut in the world premiere of Hadrian (2018); he shares the role of Calaf's father, the vanquished King Timur, with Turkish bass Önay Köse. Lebanese-Canadian soprano and Juno Award nominee Joyce El-Khoury was recently praised for the "extraordinary intensity" (The Telegraph) she brought to Roberto Devereux at Welsh National Opera; she and Colombian-American soprano Vanessa Vasquez, whose voice is full of "creamy, opulent tones" (Broadway World), share the role of devoted Liù.

Turandot's ministers are three noted artists: Moldovan baritone Adrian Timpau, praised for his "smooth base and ringing timbre" (Bachtack), is Ping; Korean-American tenor Julius Ahn brings his "lithe, multi-faceted" (Opera News) performance skills to the role of Pang; and Taiwanese-American tenor Joseph Hu rounds out the ensemble with his "fine singing" (Pittsburgh Post- Gazette) as Pong. London-born tenor Adrian Thompson brings his "indefatigable" (Opera Magazine) power of performance to the role to Emperor Altoum.

Bass-baritone Joel Allison, of Ottawa, is in his second year of the COC Ensemble Studio, a career-changing training program for emerging opera talent; he will be singing the role of the Mandarin, while Toronto-based tenor, and first-year Ensemble Studio member, Matthew Cairns makes his COC mainstage debut as the Prince of Persia.

Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi has been lauded by singers and audiences alike for his mastery of the operatic craft; he leads the COC Orchestra through a score that was designed to thrill and that features the widely-performed classical crossover masterpiece, "Nessun dorma." The COC Chorus, led by Price Family Chorus Master Sandra Horst, performs some of opera's most epic music together with the Canadian Children's Opera Company.

Turandot is sung in Italian and presented by the COC with English SURTITLES.

Turandot is a COC co-production with Teatro Real Madrid, Houston Grand Opera, and the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre of Vilnius.

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